In The News

Ronda Stryker, a Portage philanthropist best known for her work in higher education, is the recipient of the 2013 YWCA Lifetime Woman of Achievement award, reports the Kalamazoo Gazette. Stryker, 58, will be honored at the 29th Annual YWCA Women of Achievement Award Celebration, at 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, May 21, at the Radisson Plaza Hotel.

Excerpt: The YWCA Lifetime Woman of Achievement Award is given to a person who has demonstrated a lifetime of outstanding contributions to the well-being of the community, state or nation, and has a record of accomplishment, leadership and positive role modeling as a volunteer and/or in a career. "Ronda Stryker’s passion for the causes she cares about has contributed to the many successes of the organizations with which she works," said the YWCA news release.

Secant Technologies of Kalamazoo has received two contracts from Kalamazoo Public Schools totaling more than $157,000 for technology upgrades, reports MLive. One is to upgrade and expand the wireless system in its school buildings. The other contract is to purchase 30 HP desktop computers, with Microsoft Office and 19-inch monitors to replace the oldest computers located in a computer lab at Milwood Magnet School.

Texas Township is moving forward with plans for a Texas Drive trailway with an amendment that adds two sidepaths, reports MLive. The township board recently voted unanimously to add the sidepaths, which are required for the township to receive a $300,000 Michigan Department of Transportation grant toward the trailway. Township Superintendent Julie VanderWiere said that, although the township is not guaranteed the grant yet, she was told it absolutely would not be granted if the sidepaths were not added.

The trail will start at the Al Sabo Land Preserve, run through the preserve, come out to and across Texas Drive along a Consumers Energy easement, then follow that easement out to 12th Street, where it will head north to the roundabout at Milham Avenue. One sidepath will connect the trail where it emerges onto Texas Drive with Annandale Drive. The other will connect the trail on 12th Street with the end of a sidewalk slightly north of 12th Street Elementary. VanderWiere said MDOT wants the sidepaths in order to improve the trail's connectivity with neighborhoods and schools.

The city of Battle Creek will contract with a private air controller organization to keep the control tower open at W.K. Kellogg Airport, reports the Battle Creek Enquirer. The tower will be open five hours a day instead of 12 hours as it has been.

Larry Bowron, the city’s transportation director said City Manager Ken Tsuchiyama will use emergency authority to hire Midwest Air Traffic Control — which currently runs the tower under a federal contract. It will come before the Tax Increment Finance Authority at its next meeting. The contract would last for six months, until the federal government’s next fiscal year, when there is a possibility the control tower’s funding could be reinstated "in one form or another," Bowron said.

The FAA eliminated air traffic control at the airport as part of automatic federal budget cuts dictated by the sequester.

The number of Kalamazoo County parcels that went into tax foreclosure recntly dropped about 36 percent from 2012, reports MLive. In the county, 221 parcels were foreclosed on this year because of unpaid property taxes from 2010 and prior years, Kalamazoo County Treasurer Mary Balkema said. That's a drop from record-setting 346 parcels the treasurer foreclosed on in 2012.

Owners of those parcels owed a total of base tax for 2010 and prior years of nearly $537,000 and interest and penalties of nearly $327,000. About 20 of the parcels that went into tax foreclosure were homesteads. The rest were vacant lots, rental homes and businesses. Parcels in the city of Kalamazoo made up 78 percent of the total foreclosures.

Excerpt: "The better news is the parcels we did not foreclose on," Balkema told the Kalamazoo County Board of Commissioners. Balkema said her office helped 271 property owners avoid foreclosure. Of those, 36 received help from a lifeline grant. Another 62 received help from the Helping Michigan's Hardest Hit Homeowners program. Balkema's office gave 173 property owners facing financial hardship an extra year to pay their back taxes.

The Battle Creek Enquirer reports the Committee to Ban Michigan Fracking is attempting to get on a 2014 ballot an initiative to fracking from happening. The group will hold an event from 1 to 2 p.m. Saturday in Kalamazoo’s Bronson Park. A second event from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Saturday in Hastings. Hydraulic fracturing, or fracking, is the process of drilling a horizontal well and injecting specific types of shale with a chemical mix to better release the natural gas within.

Excerpt: The Kalamazoo and Hastings events are meant for people interested in volunteering and collecting signatures for the petition to get the measure on the ballot. Not only would the measure ban fracking in the state, it would also ban the waste materials produced by the process. What is called fracking fluid is a combination of mostly water and sand, and some chemicals. A mixture comes back out and needs to be taken to a waste management site.

The "Big Wow" on the Riverfront in Allegan is the goal of a plan to upgrade the string of riverfront property in Allegan's downtown. While the plan's draft hasn't been made public, at a previous public meeting ideas abounded.

"We've talked about things like ice skating rinks, amphitheaters in the riverfront area, the greening up of the parking lot," City Manager-Clerk Robert Hillard said. More parking space is among the suggestions.

The Riverfront Design Meeting is set for 7 p.m. Thursday, April 11, at the Griswold Memorial Auditorium. The public is invited. This will be the last meeting for public input.

In an effort to make students more employable once they finish high school, Niles Community Schools is offering a new program this fall called the Berrien Area Career Center, reports the Niles Daily Star. The center is designed to give students a skill or trade that could be used for direct employment or as a means to fund the pursuit of a higher education. It is open to juniors and seniors. It will offer eight Career Technical Education programs beginning this fall. English and social studies will be blended into the three-hour block

Excerpt: "We’ve had so many people walk out of these classrooms — even nationwide — with no real skills," said Tom Hurst, Career Technical Education program leader. "They have some academic skills, but that’s it. This program is designed to change that, give these students a skill that can be used to make real wages.”

St. Joseph County has earned a top ranking in Site Selection magazine’s recent issue for the number of new facilities and facility expansion projects. Defined as the "Sturgis micropolitan," the county ranks No. 23 for projects in 2012. It's significant since the area did not make the Top 100 in the previous two years, reports the Sturgis Journal. Site Selection reports six projects in St. Joseph County in 2012 that helped the area earn the ranking.

Bell’s opened early on Monday to a line of beer lovers, anxious for the first taste of Oberon, the seasonal beer celebrated this year on March 25. Some Kalamazoo taverns opened at midnight Sunday to satisfy beer lovers who were anxious to get their first sip of Oberon, reports MLive.

Excerpt: "Oberon is Kalamazoo," said Lauren Champlin, 24, who traveled from Ferndale to sip on the light wheat ale at Bell’s Eccentric Cafe on Monday morning. "It’s a tradition and we have pride for our local breweries and Bell’s. We stopped at Dark Horse Brewing Co. on Saturday, Arcadia Brewing Co. on Sunday and we were at midnight release parties."

Galesburg-Augusta Community Schools has received a $58,000 grant to fund an early-reading project designed to boost high school graduation rates, G-A Superintendent Tim Vagts told the Kalamazoo Gazette. The project targets the district's preschoolers and kindergartners and provides a variety of activities to build their reading skills. The grant is from United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region, and the project is based on an initiative at Verona Elementary School in Battle Creek. The grant will fund the project for one year but can be renewed.

Forbes magazine reports Daniel Jefferies, the founder of Newmind Group, parlayed his growing reputation as an IT expert into his own company when he started Newmind Group in 2003. Today Newmind Group has 15 employees spread across Michigan, South Carolina, Minnesota, and California. Newmind also works with third-party IT companies to help solve problems that their 900 customers around North America have. Since Newmind Group has scalable resources, they can send people on-site almost anywhere.

Excerpt: One of Newmind’s clients is called Greenleaf Hospitality, a hospitality management company that oversees two hotels, five ice arenas, seven restaurants, two retail shops, and a spa. Greenleaf Hospitality needed a way to transition from a legacy system to a cloud-based system so that they could stay on top of reports from different locations. Newmind stepped in and managed the deployment.

The beauty of winter on Lake Michigan is captured in these pictures by Tom Gill as seen in the Huffington Post. Waves battering lighthouses in St. Joseph and South Haven become natural ice sculptures. Or as the Australian, which also published his pictures, put it--stunning frozen waves of Lake Michigan show the brutal power of nature.

The United Way of the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region has exceeded its 2013 fundraising goals of more than $15.35 million, by raising $15.7 million, report MLive. The Kalamazoo campaign generated $9.6 million this year and the Battle Creek effort raised $6.1 million, both exceeding target goals set at a campaign kick-off in September. The goal for Battle Creek was $5.8 million and the goal for Kalamazoo was $9.5 million.

Excerpt: “These results are especially impressive because previous United Way mergers have seen temporary decreases in support,” said Michael Larson, president and chief executive officer of the United Way for the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo Region. “Once again, the Battle Creek and Kalamazoo region proves it’s the generous and compassionate exception to the rule.”

The Sturgis Journal reports the third of a five-year plan to clean all 150 miles of rivers in St. Joseph County will begin June 1, when a stretch of the Prairie River in Lockport Township will be the first of seven river and riverbank cleanup events this summer. Members of the County Conservation District recently announced the dates and locations of the 2013 program, which will see about 26 collective miles of debris removed from five different waterways.

Excerpt: Jen Miller, conservation district administrator, said the Centreville-based agency plans to stage a high-profile campaign later in the year in hopes of landing a crop of new volunteers and hopefully getting assistance from past participants. "We had eight events last year and participation was across the board," Miller said.